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A recent play-though has led me to think it may be worth leaving the remaining countries in your home continent without satellites (excluding South America).

If you have 2 or more countries without satellites you continue to get Abduction missions. You still get your continent bonus but the extra cash, meld and rewards from Abduction missions are a decent boost to you mid game.

As you are only completing abduction missions in one continent the panic doesn't rise either.

That is assuming they don't replace normal UFO missions - does anyone know whether this is the case or not?

Edited: to state mid game rather than early game as rightly pointed out.

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  • It isn't really early game by the time you are making this choice, though... I don't see any reason not to do it, but I think it'd mostly be because you enjoy abduction missions than for any great amount of resources ;-) I often let countries on my home continent panic, because I don't lose a bonus that way, but I don't think that's what you meant.
    – Flyto
    Dec 10, 2013 at 20:49
  • That's a fair point - I've edited my question to state mid-game rather than early game. I normally have full satellite coverage by month 4 (I think) and I've sold a lot of resources by then. I'm normally short of weapon fragments and then alloys for research. So the abduction missions help a lot here.
    – evoelise
    Dec 10, 2013 at 21:55

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Having played through 2 classic games now I'm pretty happy that this is a sound strategy.

You do get extra abduction missions and the extra cash & weapon fragments mid-game do help a lot. Also abduction missions tend to be some of the easier missions and so are good for levelling up your troops.

I have not yet tried this on Impossible.

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Cons:
Consider the very effective strategy of choosing a country on your home content for your fist satellite deployment. The primary focus of this strategy is to attack the alien base ASAP. Put more money into your ground forces instead of Satellites and Interceptors. Building and deploying a second satellite is not unheard of, and recommended, but I don't go beyond that until month 2 or 3.

This is especially useful for an Asia start b/c you are looking to build the Officer Training School and Foundry fast, and begin upgrades. This is the strategy I used to complete Ironman Impossible from an Asia start. 3 satellites can be deployed for monthly income before you must purchase an interceptor for another continent.

Europe start promotes early workshops, which promotes (among other bonuses) early satellites. This is a good start for satellite-coverage focused strategies, which lets you put-off deploying sats on other continents because catch-up will be easier with 2 workshops, again, delaying interceptor purchases, especially until N. America is covered

Also note that almost all successful strategies for Impossible difficulty focus on the early elimination of the Alien Base for panic reduction and cash instead of early satellites.

Pros:
Africa is a good candidate for 'exposed home continent' strategy for having only 2 more countries to cover and incentive to cover other continents fast. Plus income bonuses.

The only country I would find this strategy especially useful for for is N. America, for discounts in interceptor purchases, and only 2 countries to fight off abductions. in N. America starts, I almost always cover S. America immediately for the technology boost.

I have not tried transferring an existing interceptor from my home continent in the early game. This is probably the best thing to do for the Exposed Home Continent strategy.

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  • I'm not sure what you mean here - You seem to be talking about home-continent continent bonuses, but as I understand it, you get the bonus from your starting continent from the beginning, without needing to fill it with satellites.
    – Flyto
    Dec 22, 2013 at 21:20
  • Yes, you do. Adding Sat's to your home continent gives no progress to continental bonuses. Hence the strategies mentioned in 'Cons' are all about building around your home continent bonus. If you put a satellite on another continent, you should also put an interceptor there, and that's an extra expense.
    – FlipMcF
    Dec 23, 2013 at 13:22
  • I'm not sure the this makes sense - you say to focus on satellites on your home continent first so you don't need to buy interceptors so this saves money. But you don't need the satellites for the home continent bonus - so you spent more on unneeded satellites than you would do on interceptors elsewhere.
    – evoelise
    Dec 29, 2013 at 11:29
  • evolese: 'focus' is the wrong word, I must edit that. You start with a satellite. No point in not deploying it. The contrary view says to deploy this satellite to your home continent, not a foreign continent. I'm seeing the confusion is that I hint at 'fully covering' your home continent, which is not what I intended to suggest.
    – FlipMcF
    Dec 30, 2013 at 19:26
  • Proof is in the pudding. Try beating the game on Impossible by focusing on Alien Base elimination instead of satellites. You may be surprised how effective it is, although counter-intuitive. Enemy Within seems to only reduce panic by 1 world-wide for the alien base elimination, so this might not hold water beyond Enemy Unknown.
    – FlipMcF
    Dec 30, 2013 at 19:32

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